Abstract

On 16 April 1993, the Security Council of the United Nations, acting under chapter VII of the UN Charter, declared the town of Srebrenica and surrounding areas in the former Yugoslavia a safe area that was supposed to remain free from any armed attack or any other hostile act. This intervention followed on information provided by the secretary-general of the United Nations indicating a rapid deterioration of the situation in the area as a result of the continued deliberate armed attacks and shelling of the innocent civilian population by Bosnian Serb paramilitary units, the consequence of a war of attrition, terror and gangsterism that was to follow the independence of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992 and which was another phase in the disintegration of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.